1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image processing systems each including an image processing apparatus such as a multifunctional digital machine which is referred to as MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) and one single image processing server or a plurality of image processing servers which are connected to each other via a network; image forming apparatuses to be preferably employed in this image processing system; image processing methods for this image processing system; and recording mediums with image processing programs stored thereon to make a computer of the image forming apparatus execute processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
As is conventionally suggested (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 2004-289500 and No. 2009-129340), not only an image forming apparatus such as a MFP, just like the one mentioned above, by itself performs all image processing operations on image data inputted thereto, but also such an image forming apparatus makes multiple external image processing servers cooperatively perform their responsible and different image processing operations on image data inputted to the image forming apparatus.
For example, such an image processing system is capable of making: an image processing server with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) function perform an OCR operation on image data obtained by scanning a document with a scanner of an image forming apparatus; an image processing server with translation function translate the recognized characters; and an image processing server with code merging function merge a QR code to the image data obtained by the translation. If making image processing servers with specific functions cooperatively perform specific image processing operations in this way above, an image forming apparatus, whose resources are too limited to perform all image processing operations by itself, does not have to do it; an image forming apparatus only has to employ a simple configuration, which is very advantageous.
And recently, there has been another suggested image processing system which provides image processing services of various service suppliers via the Web so that users can select their preferred ones among them and obtain their target image via the Web, just like SaaS (Software as a Service).
However, the conventional image processing systems to make an external image processing server(s) perform image processing, including the technologies described in the above-introduced Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 2004-289500 and No. 2009-129340, have the following disadvantage.
When multiple image processing servers cooperatively perform image processing operations on image data, the user has to be afraid if the image data could be processed to be an unintended form depending on the order of the image processing operations.
For example, an image pattern 101 such as a security code or QR code is merged to target image data 100 as illustrated in FIG. 25A, which is a conventional method to protect handout documents. However, there is a problem with the conventional method that if a second-order image processing operation is performed on the target image data 100 after the code merging operation, the security code or QR code might hardly be detected because of being unfavorably converted to a different image pattern 102 by the second-order image processing operation, as illustrated in FIG. 25B. There is another problem with the conventional method that if a translation operation is performed on the target image data 100 after the code merging operation, the security code or QR code might go totally against the intended meaning of the user because of being unfavorably converted to a different image pattern 103 by the translation operation, as illustrated in FIG. 25C.
Specifically from the aspect of document protection, security codes or QR codes have been used and needed in more cases for recent years; and accordingly there will be increasing such problems as mentioned above.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. Indeed, certain features of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages, while still retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.